Vacancies

Funded PhD in HCI and Digital Health

As part of the D-Real Centre for Research Training, we are looking for an exceptional candidate for a funded PhD position in the area of design for digital health. The supervision team includes myself, Dr. David Coyle at University College Dublin, and Prof. Corina Sas from the University of Lancaster. Applicants should have a strong background in human-computer interaction and an interest in designing interventions for mental health. Further details of the topic are below, apply at this link.… Read more

Paper

The design of Ecological Momentary Assessment systems

Smartphones have made it easier than ever to ask people questions “in the moment” about their feelings and activities, as they go about their daily lives. This approach, described as Ecological Momentary Assessment, is a topic of interest to researchers in a range of disciplines, including HCI, design, psychology, and mental health. But what are our options in designing these systems? In this inter-disciplinary narrative review of 342 papers, published in Interacting with Computers, we examine the challenges, choices and options facing designers of these systems.… Read more

Paper

Machine Learning in Digital Mental Health – JAMA Network Open

Engagement is one of the primary challenges in the design of digital health interventions, however interaction with these interventions is complex, and can be difficult to characterise. In this paper, we explore the use of machine learning techniques to analyse engagment in digital mental health interventions. The work was carried out in collaboration with researchers in Microsoft Research, SilverCloud Health, and TCD School of Psychology.

Chien I, Enrique A, Palacios J, Regan, T., Keegan, D., Carter, D., Tschiatschek S., Nori, A.,… Read more

Paper

Paper on Machine Learning in Mental Health Accepted to ACM ToCHI

Machine Learning can be expected to have a significant impact on the field of mental health in the coming years. Researchers in computing have been exploring the potential of these systems, looking at a variety of data sources ranging from sensor based systems to electronic health records. In this paper, we review work in the computing literature, and advocate for a more human-centered approach, in order to ethically and effectively realise the potential of these systems.

A. Thieme, D. Belgrave & G.… Read more

News / Vacancies

Microsoft Research Funded PhD on Conversational User Interfaces for Mental Health

Health self-report or self-monitoring activities, such as mood logging, are a central part of many treatments for mental health problems. It serves to help raise awareness of the person?s own feelings, daily activities and cognitive processes, and provides measures and recordings that offer information for independent action, or consultation with care providers. In addition to mood charting as a standalone activity, or an activity conducted between face-to-face therapy sessions, accurate reporting of mood is integral for wellbeing applications and technologies to function appropriately.… Read more

News / Paper

Back to CHI – 300,000 clients later!

At CHI 2012, we presented the first exploratory study, with 45 clients, of the SilverCloud platform for online interventions. Eight years, and over 300,000 clients later, we will be presenting two very different papers which increase our understanding of how iCBT works in practice at CHI2020. The first is a machine learning study based on analysis of 234,735 clinical supporter messages, in collaboration with researchers at Microsoft Research Cambridge (Prerna Chikersal, Danielle Belgrave and Anja Thieme), and the SilverCloud Health clinical team (A.… Read more

Paper

Personal Information in Public Health

Using personal data in mHealth apps for public health requires navigating a range of design tensions, and the area of perinatal mental health is a particularly complex setting. We explore the balance between the many concerns and constraints affecting the design of these systems (both patient and clinician interfaces), in a new (open access) paper in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.102373. The work was carried out as part of a collaboration between ourselves at Trinity College Dublin and researchers at the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, with Marguerite Barry at UCD & Cecily Morrison at Microsoft Research Cambridge.… Read more

Event

50 Years of Computer Science at TCD

We welcomed over 160 alumni to the Dining Hall last night to celebrate 50 years of Computer Science here at TCD, and the enduring legacy of Prof. John Byrne. His loan to me of a book during my final year project led to me pursuing my doctoral studies in the HCI group at York (the book was edited by my future supervisor, I sent him an email, and somehow ended up with a PhD studentship). Somehow it always seemed ok to pop my head in to say hello to Prof.… Read more

Event / News

Reflections on Machine Learning and Mental Health

Together with collaborators Anja Thieme, Danielle Belgrave at Microsoft Research Cambridge, and Akane Sano at Rice University, we’ve written a short article for ACM interactions reflecting on the topics discussed at our workshop on Machine Learning in Mental Health at the ACII Conference on Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction in Cambridge in September. Thanks to all the speakers and participants!

https://interactions.acm.org/blog/view/reflections-on-mental-health-assessment-and-ethics-for-machine-learning-app… Read more

Event / News

Meeting on Personalised Medicine

I was very happy to participate in the REA Cluster Event on Personalised Medicine at the Instituto de Salud Carlos III in Madrid on the 5th-6th November, on behalf of the AffecTech project. The meeting was organised by Laurence Marrama-Rakatoarivony. As well as hearing about the variety of innovative work being carried out across a number of Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Innovative Training Networks (ITN’s), a series of roundtable discussions between policy makers and researchers explored key topics relating to the future of personalised medicine.… Read more

News

ACM Europe Council Award at CHI 2019

We were surprised and delighted to receive the ACM Europe Council sponsored award for best paper at CHI 2019! The award-winning paper was selected amongst the 29 Best Paper Award winners at CHI 2019 (themselves selected as the top 1% of 2960 submissions), by members of the CHI 2019 Best Paper Selection Committee. The award acknowledges groundbreaking research for its importance and contribution to the area and to highlight theoretical and practical innovations that are likely to shape the future of computing both in Europe and worldwide.… Read more